Disrupted

My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

By: Dan Lyons

Narrated by: Dan Lyons

An instant New York Times bestseller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes readers inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups.

For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong?

HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."

Critic reviews

New York Times bestseller
Wall Street Journal bestseller
San Francisco Chronicle bestseller

"Using his trademark wit and clear-eyed analysis, Dan Lyons has delivered a much-needed referendum on the current state of Silicon Valley. In wildly entertaining fashion, Disrupted explores the ways in which many technology companies have come to fool the public and themselves. Lyons has injected a dose of sanity into a world gone mad."—Ashlee Vance, New York Times-bestselling author of Elon Musk

"Dan 'Fake Steve' Lyons runs such a savage burn on his ex-employer, HubSpot, that the smoke can be seen clear across the country in Silicon Valley. Disrupted is fun, compulsively readable and just might tell us something important about the hypocrisy and cult-like fervor inside today's technology giants."—Brad Stone, New York Times-bestselling author of The Everything Store

"Dan Lyons goes deep inside a company that uses terms like 'world class marketing thought leaders' to show us how ridiculous, wasteful, and infantile tech start-ups like this can be. And best of all, Lyons does this with his trademark pejorative and hilarious tone."—Nick Bilton, New York Times technology columnist

"Troubling but funny ... [a] coolly observant book ... [with] a splendidly weird coda ... You couldn't have written a tastier ending, even for HBO."—Dwight Garner, New York Times

"Disrupted by Dan Lyons is the best book about Silicon Valley today.... Simultaneously hilarious and terrifying, Disrupted is an insider's look at a technology start-up from an outsider's perspective. Yet it's more than a chronicle of Lyons' tenure at one company, but a broader commentary on a business culture that often appears to be built on financial quicksand."—Los Angeles Times

"As the writer behind the satirical blog Fake Steve Jobs, [Lyons] could not have imagined a place so ripe for parody as HubSpot. Every detail of the hip office space, incompetent management, and delusional workforce described by Lyons in his hilarious and unsettling exposé is like something out of a scripted comedy (the author writes for HBO's Silicon Valley) ... An exacting, excoriating takedown of the current startup 'bubble' and the juvenile corporate culture it engenders."—Kirkus Reviews

"Scathingly funny .... Like the show 'Silicon Valley,' Disrupted nails the workings of spastic, hypocritical, delusional tech culture."—New York Post

"Laugh-out-loud funny."—Newsweek

Confirms my darkest fears of tech!

My opinion has always been that the tech start-up IPO world was dark and seedy world where most are just concerned with cashing out before REALITY sets. Dan does an incredible job of detailing every facet from sinister C-Suite personalities to ridiculous valuations that mom and pop are sucked into buying stock in. The deceptions being sold to everyone that never turning a profit is ok. I wish all retail investors would read this book before buying tech stocks. An intensely entertaining listen. I enjoyed it thoroughly .....just wish it were fiction!

Gave me a lot to think about

Would you consider the audio edition of Disrupted to be better than the print version?

I would assume it is better because it is read by the author so a passion for the story comes across and made it even better.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Dan Lyons. It was a great real life story that we are all faced with in this age group in some way or another

What about Dan Lyons’s performance did you like?

He is believable

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

This is unacceptable and it could happen to YOU,

Any additional comments?

Great book that I have recommended to a lot of people to listen to,

Powerful and wildly entertaining

This shines a light on a lot of what is considered “normal” in Silicon Valley. Thanks for putting the reality so many of us experience into accessible and humorous storytelling. This is such a fun (and not a little disturbing) read!!

Story about hubspot - a software company

Nice story about a bad yet successful startup. Very long, kind of sad, and I think the author misses some points, drawing a more cynical view than reality. However it is well written, and has interesting perspectives.

Great Book Dan

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Great book and great reading with the "slight" Boston accent, which I grew up with. Thanks for the book excellent narrative -- you cant miss this book.

Laugh out loud funny and very insightful!

Fantastic to hear the inside story of a startup that is not the usual RaRaRa cheerleading from a Founder or VC.

It had me cracking up with laughter while driving. And despite the jaw dropping stupidity on display, the company's share price has continued to rise. It gives hope to us all that if THEY can make it, surely we can too. (Though it helps if you have the Silicon Valley VC Ponzi scheme pumping your stock).

A must read book.

Interesting facts and a great story

The beginning sounds like Dan is just a complainer but the story gets a lot more interesting from there. Now I realize I have experienced the same sort of age discrimination. Before I thought it was just a couple of young people being extremely nasty and unprofessional. But now I think about it having read Dan's book, I see that some of it was age discrimination and gender discrimination by two males both who were young and one that had worked at Google. It amazes me when this whole house of cards is going to come crashing down as most of these companies (as Dan points out) are not making a profit and yet people are investing in them. Lots of sneaky people making sneaky money. That karma must come back to bite them not matter how much they say they are helping the world. Really they are just exploiting people and giving them silly perks to make them not realize that the long hours and low wages are exploitation.

Hilarious, True and Awesome

I’m really happy Lyons did this good service for the world. Caveat: I like HubSpot the product. But I like that he’s exposed the win-at-all-cost and manufacture-hype mentality. It was funny and well-written.

Hilarious and eye-opening

Towards the end it got a bit whiny. Your job sucks, I get it! But overall it's a great read. I really enjoyed it and recommend it. Great narration by the author himself.

excellent

absolutely loved this intimate, inside look at the high tech Silicon Valley startup and it's politics. Very entertaining, amusing and at times even jaw dropping account written and read by the author.